Gigapans

MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) is the next satellite launching to Mars and designed to investigate the dramatic climatic change the planet has experienced. Though Mars once held liquid surface water, the dense atmosphere that supported it was lost to space long ago. MAVEN will look at the area around...

Marine debris collects by the ton in the Northwest Hawaiian islands. Fishing nets and loops of plastic are the most dangerous to the seals because of easy entanglement, but small plastic is worst for the birds. Parents feed chicks bottle caps, cigarette lighters and other small plastic that can become lodged in their...

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The NOAA/NMFS Hawaiian Monks Seal field camp. We lived in these tents for five weeks while studying the seals on the multiple islets of the atoll.
Photographed under Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument permit #2012-001-L

The broken Fish and Wildlife sign identifying Southeast Island, the largest islet on Pearl and Hermes Atoll. Text is in both English and Japanese because of the poaching problems in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands during the early 20th century that tended to involve mainly Japanese perpetrators.
Photographed under...

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Two pairs of Hawaiian Monk Seal moms and pups rest on this small sandbar south of North Island in the atoll. One pup is much larger than the other because it's several weeks older.
Photographed under Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument permit #2012-001-L